Memoirs of a Butch Lesbian

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Note: I put “white” in parentheses because male privilege crosses lines of race, religion, country, etc., so while white men are at the top of the pyramid, the men below them also profit from male privilege.

The note at the VA dental front desk says, “Please check in at the kiosk. Thank you.”

Naturally, I check in at the kiosk. Because of my conditioning and socialization, I don’t presume to think that I deserve special treatment. Old white male goes to the front desk to check in and the woman checks him in, instead of telling him to check in at the kiosk.

The privilege isn’t just that she didn’t tell him to use the kiosk, as they have done me in the past, the privilege is also the fact that he walked past the kiosk, ignored the sign, and went to the front desk *expecting* the women to check him in for his appointment.

Privilege isn’t just about “getting stuff,” it’s also walking through this world *expecting* stuff – expecting to be first, expecting that the rules don’t apply to you, expecting people to wait on and for you. Expecting to be deferred to, and of course, expecting to be allowed and accepted everywhere, invited or not.

I see it a lot on the road too – white males (deliberately) pull out in front of me, expecting me to slow down for them, turning on their turn signal and thinking they have the right of way, etc. One man did that and hit me, causing a severe accident. He kept on driving because he didn’t notice the commotion that he started. When he got to his destination, he saw the damage to his car and drove back to the accident site, *expecting* someone else to be held accountable. Instead, he was cited for improper lane change – which he fought and lost in court – and leaving the scene of an accident.

They don’t just *think* they deserve more, they actually believe it and walk through life expecting it to be handed to them. Unfortunately, the rest of us are completely conditioned and socialized to give them what they want and not fight it – even getting mad at the few who *do* fight it.

Like when I brought this up to the dental assistant, she gave the excuse that they just refuse to use the computer (to be clear, it’s a touch screen monitor – you stick your VA ID in it, then answer a few Qs, the end). I said, “it’s probably white males doing that, huh?” She blinked and said, “well, yeah, I see your point.” I told her I saw hers as well, because like I said, we are conditioned to give them what they want.

What I failed to point out because I just now thought of it is that they have to use the kiosks in the pharmacy and lab. If they “don’t know how” or “don’t want to,” they have to have someone help them because those two places require us ALL to check in via the kiosks, no exceptions. So crying about it in dental or another clinic is just them imposing their will onto a woman and expecting her to do the work for him by checking him in instead of being firm and insisting he use the kiosk like everyone else.

What’s the big deal? They are taking these women from their other duties: answering the phones, checking patients out, setting up return appointments, and the list goes on. They have to stop doing all of that to cater to these men; and the men expect the women to cater to them.

Imagine how hard these men would fight to keep things like this. That’s why male gamers attack female gamers and developers both on and offline. It’s why male transgenders (TIMs or trans identified males) are so violent towards women, again, both on and offline, who refuse to share in their delusions; and TIMs and their handmaidens are laughably ok with being violent towards women, calling their violence “self-defense.”

See, TIMs view radical feminists’ dissent as violence and they actually believe it is violence to “misgender” them – online. There is not one piece of proof that a radical feminist, or any woman, has killed a transgender. Not one. Still, we are blamed for the violence against them; and let’s be clear, most of the TIMs who are killed are men of color prostituting themselves, getting killed by Johns and pimps. NOT WOMEN. But instead of naming the problem and blaming men for the male violence against transgenders, they blame women and attack us online by using assault, rape, and death threats, sometimes by the dozen(s); and in real life by cornering us, screaming at us, assaulting us, raping us, and yes, killing us.

No, men are not looking to give up their privilege, their entitlement any time soon. It’s why the man who caused my accident became angry and fought his improper lane change citation. He felt he was right because his turn signal was on, giving him the right of way (in his mind). Men, especially white men, expect the rest of us to cater to their wants and needs, no questions asked.

They won’t give up their power without a fight; and the women who can’t see past their own conditioning will always help men fight to stay in control. It is disheartening for us to see women sticking up to, arguing for, and fighting for these men, these TIMs. I liken it to the Matrix: these women, these “transmaidens” are stuck in the matrix, in the false world where their conditioning has them tied down and doing as men wish, even if it conflicts with reality. But radical feminists took the red pill and are free of the matrix, fighting for ALL women, everywhere.

But that’s why radical feminists are so hated: we fight against our conditioning and internalized misogyny and we fight for women’s liberation from male supremacy. Women’s liberation from patriarchy. Women’s liberation from men.

Men have only the power we women give them. If we were to, once and for all, band together over races, religions, countries, and continents, we would be able to topple the patriarchy and end men’s tyranny. Finally.

Like this:

Transgender propaganda states that no woman has ever been harmed by a transgender in the women’s bathroom or in any other women’s private spaces, e.g., locker/dressing rooms, homeless and battered woman shelters, jails/prisons, etc. But if people would actually LOOK, instead of relying on transgender alternative facts, they would see that the stories are there, numbering in the dozens, at least, of women being assaulted, raped, and killed both by male transgenders and males who are not transgender, but pretend to be in order to gain access to women’s private spaces, because male violence is a real thing.

There is one sorta recent story that was barely touched by mainstream media and completely ignored by LGB media (except for @PinkNews who reported the male transgender as a woman and neglected to report on his motive) because it flies in the face of transgender propaganda, which says that men who claim to be women are not violent. That somehow, either because they have “female brains” or because they are on estrogen (there are those alternative facts again!), they are not violent. Even with proof positive through news stories reporting their violent behavior and from violent conviction reports from the UN that state that male transgenders are just as violent as males who are not transgender, straight women, gay men, straight men, and sadly, even lesbians still churn out the bullshit party line that these men are sensitive little bunnies who never do any harm to anyone.

The story I am talking about, of course, is the one of the male transactivist, Dana Rivers who violently murdered a Lesbian couple and their son in Oakland this past November by shooting and stabbing them, setting the house on fire, and then trying to flee the scene, covered in blood, using one of the Lesbians’ motorcycle.

You want to know why that male transgender killed the lesbian couple & their son?

There are two reasons: the LESBIANS refused his sexual advances (because, hello, Lesbians do not fuck men!) and they refused to see him as a lesbian.

I blame transgender propaganda on their murders.

See, here’s the thing. Transgenders insist that women, and especially lesbians, “misgendering” them (which isn’t really a thing), refusing to see them as the opposite sex, and refusing to fuck them, kills transgenders because it fosters an atmosphere of violence towards transgenders…. which, of course, it doesn’t. In any way whatsoever. That’s just the bullshit transgenders sell to people who wish to be politically correct and seen as supportive of transgenders’ delusions. We all know who actually attack and kill these men: other men!

But what that transgender propaganda actually does is foster an atmosphere of violence against WOMEN. It works like this: transgenders and their sheeple feel that their violence against women is justified, that it is in direct response to our fictitious violence, aka, “misgendering,” that it is “self-defense.” This gives them the freedom to make violent threats online, stalk and cyber stalk women, dox women, harass women both on and offline, as well as actually assaulting and killing women who will not share in the transgender delusions that gender is real and biology is not.

What stories like the one mentioned above show is that transgender propaganda like the “cotton ceiling,” which says that lesbians should give male transgenders access to their bodies or they are bigots, is not just steeped in male privilege, it’s not just rape culture, it definitely fosters an atmosphere of violence against women. That man felt so entitled to those lesbians’ bodies and his male privilege allowed him to believe so sincerely that those women should have recognized him as a lesbian, that he killed them and their son and he felt justified in doing so.

The thing that gets me here is the sheer number of women who still believe the trans bullshit! I mean, I expect other men, both gay and straight, to buy into it because most of the transgender propaganda is MRA 101! But women….. just, damn.

I know, I know, we are conditioned to put men first, to believe everything men tell us, and to consider men’s opinions to matter more than our own, I understand that. But I guess….. I guess it’s kinda like that Matrix movie (the first one, I treat the other two as if they don’t exist, lol): the vast majority of the human population is stuck in the matrix while their actual bodies are cocooned in contraptions that keep them alive so that they can be used as a power source for the machines.

But some people have come to realize the truth of their situation. They realize that what they believed was real all of their lives isn’t really real at all. The truth comes painfully and slowly, because it is hard to break from what you have believed for so long.

That’s how it is for gender critical feminists (and I know that there are radical feminists who don’t agree with the term “gender critical,” but please bear with me). A lot of gender critical feminists started out all nice and accepting of the transgender narrative, accepting men as women, assuming they had discarded their male privilege and were now sister. Then things start not making sense and they have questions, but they cannot ask them for fear of being called a bigot, or worse, the slur “TERF.” So they keep quiet. But as time rolls on and male transgenders reveal themselves to be narcissists with all the male privilege they were born with, the future gender critical feminists start looking in other places for information, to answer their questions.

They start reading transgender critical and radical feminist blogs and they realize that they are NOT crazy, that other women have the same questions and feel the same about the transgender narrative as they do. Right about then something happens that makes them hit what we call, “peak trans.” Something a male transgender says or does is just the last straw for these women and they either become gender critical feminists or radical feminists.

This is when they really start reading: blogs, Facebook groups and pages, and books about feminism. They realize, either here at this point or at their peak trans moment, that male transgenders have the same propensity to violence as men who are not transgenders. They see and read the news stories on sites like AllisonsLaw.wordpress.com* that show story after story violence against women perpetrated by male transgenders, cross dressers who may or may not be transgenders, “men in dresses” who may or may not be transgender, and men who are not transgender but claim to be so they can enter women’s private spaces.

It happens a LOT more then you might think, dear reader; and we must work together to make more and more women aware of this so that they know for whom they are advocating. Then more and more women will hit peak trans. They will come to us with questions, looking for information and comradery. So when you see these women in real life or online, help direct them to feminist blogs, feminists’ published works, and links like radfem.org, which has radical feminist works in .pdf files for women to read, for free.

It just boils down to this: some men are violent, so it stands to reason that some male transgenders are violent. That was even concluded in a 30 year long study of transsexuals/transgenders.

So let’s work together to not only combat these men, but to speak to the women around them. When you comment to violent male transgenders or other men, make sure you remember who your audience is: the women supporting them. Try hard to not lose your temper and just keep on writing to these women. Try not to let the narcissists gaslight you or confuse you by trying to turn things on you, just “keep calm and carry on” my sisters! Some of those women are listening to you!

Think of it like this: you cannot and will not convert the devoted cult members (transgenders), but you may be able to convert the cult members who are already questioning the cult and its “movement.” Not every woman can be converted out of the cult, but as we convert more and more, they will talk and discuss and convert some on their own, who will convert others and soon, the cult collapses in on itself and women can abolish gender forever!

I believe we can make it happen, my sisters!

#ResistGender

#PutWomenFirst

*The Allison’s Law site seems to have come down, so give the Facebook group, “This Never Happens” a try to find news stories about TIM violence. -BBB

I honestly cannot believe that we have to continue to discuss this over and over and over again; but I guess when you are dealing with juvenile young men with male privilege who have yet to have fully developed brains and older men with male privilege going through midlife crisis, not to mention all of the women who, for some disturbed reason, support all of these men, then I guess womyn just have to continue to calmly stay on point and tell these men and the women who support them, again, that they are wrong. In so many ways, yes, but I am focusing on this for a minute.

I am not sure how this has come about, but “TERF” is not an identity. “TERFs” do not actually exist. They are not a community of womyn within the larger LGB community. “TERFs” are not a group of womyn working and plotting against transgenders. They are certainly not working together to exterminate transgenders, something of which I have been accused.

“TERF” is, once again, a slur. This slur is used to silence womyn. None of us actually “identify” as “TERFs.” This slur is actually thrust upon us and shoved down our throats by men who are so upset over the fact that there are womyn out there who are not falling to our knees in our utter devotion to porn sick, cross dressing, autogynephile men who claim to be women, but expect to still be treated and adored as men, with their male privilege, and their penises, intact.

“TERF” may have been created by two heterosexual women trying to give a name to radical feminists who do not wish to have males in their private spaces, but just every other slur in the world, its meaning has changed, morphed into some crazy kind of battle cry for males to use as they attack womyn mercilessly online, threatening to assault, rape, even kill womyn who do not agree with them and who do not fall all over themselves to believe that men (or boys) can be women (or girls).

The slur, “TERF” is a term that includes –all- womyn (and some gay men) who know the truth about biology, all womyn who understand even the most basic science. I am not a radical feminist, but I have been called a “TERF” over and over again, just for stating my opinion, an opinion I am allowed to have and share online or anywhere, an opinion that I share with hundreds of thousands of other womyn (and some men).

I don’t know how much more plainly I can state this, dear reader. “TERF” is not an identity, it is a slur used to silence womyn. We who are labeled as such are not the violent ones here. We do not issue threats of violence. We do not keep lists of male or female transgenders with their contact information so that we may harass them in real life.

Oh yes, dear reader, you didn’t know that? Male transgenders and their female allies keep lists of womyn who they decide are “TERFs.” They say they keep such lists so as to warn other transgenders to steer clear of us, but what they are really doing is targeting women. They keep us and as much personal information about us on a list they call “TERF tracker.” One of the founders of “TERF Tracker” was a woman who aligned herself with the most violent transgenders against womyn. She later tried to align herself with womyn who know the truth about transgenders, but she did so as a ruse, to befriend women (and a few men) so that she could gain information on us. She then turned back to transgenders and now runs a gay and lesbian liberation page that does nothing more than attack womyn like me, womyn who know that men cannot become women and that women cannot become men.

This woman is one of those who makes the assertion that “TERF” is an identity women take on and share with other womyn. She puts forth the idea that a woman who is not a friend to other women is the “leader” of the “TERFs” when there is no such organization of “TERFs,” so there can be no such “leader.”

The other founder of “TERF Tracker” was later found out to be a violent child rapist, He even admitted as much. Just another entitled, cross dressing, porn sick, autogynephile who was later found out to be a child rapist or a rapist of women.

But I digress. I do not wish for my blog to be about these women, one of whom aligns herself with violent transgenders, the other of whom is a woman who enjoys attacking womyn, outing anonymous bloggers such as myself, or that man, that child rapist. They deserve no time or attention on my blog.

No, this post was intended to assert to you, dear reader that “TERF” is not an identity, not a label womyn call themselves, and certainly not a term womyn “reclaim” in an effort to take its power away. Since we never claimed it as ours in the first place, we certainly cannot “reclaim” it now!

No, “TERF” is and has always remained a slur used to silence, threaten, and harass womyn. Make sure to spread this truth around, my sisters, as those who do not know what a “TERF” is are vulnerable to believing the transgenders who call themselves “activists” when they try to assert that “TERF” is an identity we call ourselves. Post about “TERF” being a slur, tweet about “TERF” being a slur, talk to your friends about “TERF” being a slur. Just get out there, sisters, and inform others about this slur!!

Make sure that your friends all know that this label, “TERF,” that is shoved down our throats by transgenders, the very people who claim that self-identification is the most important thing, the people who claim that people who ID them as someone they are not (i.e., “misgender,” which is a misnomer, it should actually be, “missexed”) are actually committing violence against them, the people, mostly men, who claim that “TERF” is an identification that we use to describe ourselves when in reality, they force the label onto us, make sure that your friends know that “TERF” is nothing more than a slur used against women, to silence us and to threaten violence against us.

I call upon all of you, dear readers, to tell, post, tweet, text, whatever you need to do, to make sure that people know that “TERF” is not an ID, it is a slur!

Here’s the thing. Do you know how I know that transgenders do not really believe there are more than two sexes and that they are somehow another, third sex? Men who claim to be women aren’t out there trying to garner donations and support for healthcare on behalf of a third sex. They are not creating new medical spaces, shelters, prison wards, etc. for a third sex. They are not trying to create spaces where this third sex can go to get away from the oppressive men who threaten them, beat them, rape them, and kill them. Nope. What are these men doing? They are trying to take away spaces from women. They are trying to take away medical services from women. They are trying to take over spaces designated for women like bathrooms, changing rooms, prisons, shelters, etc.

Do you know how I know that “cis” is nothing more than a slur? Just listen to them when they try to explain why we should all be embracing “cis.” Listen to them as they tell us, with straight faces, that we are all comfortable with our bodies, comfortable with our sexes and the sexual stereotypes that go with them, and comfortable with our “gender presentations,” whatever they are. While they are saying all of that out of one side of their face, they are spitting the term at us with phrases like, “Die Cis Scum!” This was a term created to other women because some straight white men with a fetish for being seen as women felt othered when they were called trans women and not simply, women. So they, being men, had to take their frustrations out on women and coined the term “cis” in order to other everyone else, so they could feel special and dominant again.

Do you know how I know that “TERF” is simply a slur against women? Well, aside from the fact that many transactivists have admitted that it is a slur, I mean. Well, I actually wrote a whole post on this, but it boils down to this: when you create a term to describe me and you center that term around yourself, you are doing it wrong. My life is not centered on you. I am not trans-centered. I am woman-centered. I am Pro-Woman. So creating a label that you are now going to force down my throat while crying about how I had better not label you in any way but that which you deem appropriate or else you will set me on fire or whatever, you are using that label as a slur.

I keep hearing about how if we take away their ability to use “cis” and “TERF,” then we are crippling trans people in how they interact with, well, people in general. This is simply not true. I am a woman. Period. That’s it. I am not “cis” anything and I am certainly not a “TERF;” but those two labels keep being forced onto me by a group of people who only want to self-label and damn everyone who don’t give them that right. Anyone else see the irony here?

I don’t understand why this is so hard for transgenders to understand. “Cis” doesn’t describe us, “woman” does; and “TERF” is a hateful slur designed to silence women, which I guess is why they keep using it. But, even though we keep telling them that and keep telling them we are offended by these terms (because with these professional victims, you have to use victim language to get them to understand), they disrespect us by continually using it and then get mad when we won’t use “proper” pronouns!

So that’s how I know these things, dear reader. There is nothing about their own safety, their own healthcare, their own spaces because they want what women have; and they keep using “cis” and “TERF” quite simply because they are slurs that they can use to silence and gaslight women. They want to self-label and still have the control to label us. They want to take our spaces because, right now, they don’t can can’t have them.

Put simply, men want what they don’t or can’t have and they want to have the right to continue to control women even when they call themselves women.

Like this:

I was reading a thread in a Michfest Facebook group the other day when I saw a woman shame and scold a friend of mine for calling a trans woman a man. This woman said she understood the anger, but not the hate of calling trans women men. In other words, she was trying to shame my friend, another woman, into silence, which is a tactic men have been using for years, especially the men who call themselves women and trans “activists.” They use shaming techniques to trick liberal feminists into siding with them and they save most of their violence for the rest of us, those of us who see past their delusions and to the reality of it all.

But I understood where my friend was coming from: it wasn’t rage or hatred or even anger, it was truth. That was her line in the sand and so it is mine as well. My line in the sand is biology. If I may geek out on your for a moment, dear reader, as Captain Picard said when he was speaking of the Borg invading their space, he said each time the Borg advance, we fall back and fall back and fall back. “Not again,” he said. “The line must be drawn here. This far. No farther.” That’s how I feel about these men who call themselves women, these men who, to fulfill their fetishistic desires, take “woman” as they see her through their male privileged, sexist, misogynistic eyes and they emulate her while declaring they are a better woman than most of us who were born females in this male dominated society.

They want us to use female pronouns. They want us to redefine woman so they can be called a woman in every instance, not trans women, but women. They want our spaces, our bathrooms, our dressing rooms. They want to be housed with women in jails when they commit acts of violence against, you guessed it, women, so they can further their abuse. They don’t want a compromise, they want total domination. They want a total submission. They want nothing less than total surrender.

I feel the same way about the women who call themselves men or the butches who simply need to be considered male while still claiming to be butches, using male pronouns, etc. They don’t want a compromise any more than the men do. They want it all. They demand they be seen the way they want to be seen and not based on any kind of reality or truth in this or any other universe. To this, I say, “No!”

Like my friend in that Michfest Facebook group, I draw my line here, at biology. The trans “women” were born male and no matter how many surgeries they have or how many hormones they take, if they even have or take any, which a lot do not, they are and always will be male. The women who call themselves men are the same: they were born female and no amount of hormones or surgeries will ever change that. Ever. Their biology will always remain the same. Males born males will always be males and females born females will always be females. These are immutable facts. I have put up with the shenanigans of transgenders for so long now, with the hate, the trolling, and the violent threats that my line in the sand is drawn here and I will not move back any farther. I will not concede an inch!

My line in the sand isn’t built on anger, rage, or hate. My line in the sand is built on biology. Biology and reality will win out over delusion and narcissism. Biology is the truth and eventually, when more and more women see the violence, see the narcissism, see the demands for not just a few but ALL of our spaces, these women will also rise up and say, “No more!”

Here’s the thing. The real goal of male transgenders, or trans “women,” if you will is not to be or become women, it is not to be safe from other men, it is not to join women in the fight against the patriarchy. It is simply: to control women.

I was approached on Twitter the other day (accosted really, since he bombarded my feed with tweets even after it was clear I had him blocked) by a male transgender who, after reading my post about the term “TERF” being a slur, had nothing to say about the term “TERF” nor had he any remorse for using a word that a woman (actually, women, plural) was telling him was a slur. He also stated quite emphatically that men were not the problem; because in my post, I mentioned how women feeling safe was a main issue of wanting to have our own spaces and when I mentioned how some male transgenders argue for the same safe spaces, I said that they should create their own spaces because men were their problem as much as ours and we should not bear the brunt of their needs for safe spaces by losing our own.

No, this man was not concerned about using a slur or especially about no longer using it (a perusal of his Twitter after blocking him showed me that he continued to use it as a slur), nor was he concerned about safety from men. His main and, well, only concern was that women see him as a woman. That’s the crux of the issue, isn’t it? Male transgenders don’t want to change the violent ways of men, especially since so many male transgenders are, themselves, violent men. They don’t want protection from said violent men and they of course would never advocate for women to be safe from violent men. No what they want, what they have always wanted is to control women, to make us call them by the names and pronouns that they choose while they force us to be called the names that we do not choose (read: they are hypocrites). These men want to force lesbians to have sex with them by shaming us into accepting the penis as a female body part and that we are bigots if we do not fuck them. These men want to force us to give up our personal and private spaces so that they can have them instead; not for their own safety, but simply because they want them. These men want to force women to see them as women even though our own common sense, science, and biology, hell our own eyes tell us differently. The goal of these men has not been to be safe from violence and share spaces under that common need, it is and always has been to control women. Period.

Here’s the thing, dear reader: if these male transgenders really believed they were women, they would not need confirmation from women. They would not need confirmation from anyone because they would know they are women. Does it piss me off when people see me as a man and don’t see the woman that I am? Of course! It makes me feel invisible as a woman. But I am still a woman, regardless of what others see. Their inability to see that at first glance does not negate the fact that I am a woman. I do not need other people to confirm that fact for me.

Another thing: I am a woman who is very woman-centric; and no, I do not believe that is because I am a lesbian, as I think any woman can be woman centric, regardless of her sexual and/or intimate partners. By woman-centric, I mean I put women first. I advocate for female causes, I donate to women’s shelters, I fight for women’s rights to have women-only spaces, etc. I even buy books by women authors, try to shop at women owned businesses when I can, and even hired a woman when I need to get things done on my property. You don’t see this with male transgenders. They are all still male centric. Even their name for us, “TERF,” is male centric because is supposes that we are centering our wanting to be around other females as an anti-trans thing. The very term is flawed not just because it is a slur used to silence women and not just because not all of us are radical feminists. No, this term is flawed for the very simple reason that it centers us around transgenders when we are not. We are women-centered.

But we all know that male transgenders were born male, socialized as male, and have male privilege, whether external (recognized as male by society), internal (the feelings of privilege they hold), or both. When I say they are male-centric, I mean that they center everything on being male. They come at women instead of to women, they try to dominate women, conversations, and situations, they don’t respect women, female causes or issues, and they could care less about women’s rights.

We even see this kind of behavior and worse from some of the men who have had surgeries to create some sort of facsimile of a woman out of their bodies. They still need outside confirmation. They still act like the men they were socialized to be from birth. They still treat women the same. Look at Janet Mock. Here is a man who is held up as the ideal trans “woman,” who other male transgenders consider the end of the rainbow, where they want to be themselves, who, we all assume, had the surgeries to make him into a Frankenstein-esque version of a woman; but he is still a sexist, misogynistic asshole who clearly has no respect for and, in fact, hates women. That is the man he was socialized to become and a few hormones and surgeries didn’t take those misogynistic feelings away, nor did they change how badly he treats women.

So here’s what I don’t understand, dear reader. Why do women keep falling for this? I mean, intellectually I can understand that women are socialized, conditioned to believe that men are more important, their opinions, wants, needs, etc. matter more than our own. But I still have a hard time grasping how so many women can be so blind to what these men are really doing. In my opinion, it isn’t that they can’t see it, but that they won’t see it. They refuse to see it because they are so conditioned and socialized to clear the way for men that they refuse to see what these men are really doing: trying to control women from the inside.

We saw the same kinds of things in the LGB movement for years and years: lesbians standing up with gay men for male causes, but when it came time to step up for women’s causes, there were no gay men to be seen. Even though we were lesbians and therefore had no need for men in our lives, we were still women and therefore socialized to put men and men’s needs first and foremost.

I do have hope though. I mean, more lesbians have opened their eyes over the years to see that the gay rights movement has actually been the gay male rights movement, so I have hope that more and more women will open their eyes and see that these men are not and cannot become women. These are men still trying to control, dominate, harass, and violate women. They are just doing it under the disguise of “being” women.

I find it difficult to believe that we women have to keep saying this and writing about it, but I guess we do because men’s voices are the only ones people want to listen to, not ours’; but make no mistake, “TERF” is a slur created by men to silence and even shame women. I was reading a post by GallusMag the other day where she talked about a man who claimed to be a woman who works for Twitter and who is accused of rape. In the comments section, GallusMag (who was locked out of her WordPress blog because of that post, which is WordPress’s way of telling women that if you write about their friends and colleagues, they will shut you down and fast) posted a pic of a news agency, The Daily Dot, actually using the word “TERF” as if it is a normal, accepted word by everyone and not a word made up by men in their ongoing effort to silence women in the issue of transgenderism. It made me incredibly angry because this was supposed to be a news organization, or at least, that is what I am lead to believe. Maybe they are a trash-rag that doesn’t really report the news so much as they report gossip and innuendo?

So let’s talk about this slur for a minute. A lot of transgenders and their allies like to keep saying that it is simply a description of radical feminists who are “trans-exclusionary.” But let’s get real here, ok? This slur may have started out as a simply description by a man who felt slighted by some women who feel that men, even in dresses, should not be allowed in certain spaces that are for women, spaces like restrooms, changing rooms, showers, dressing rooms, etc.; but the word went way beyond a description and into slur territory within a few minute of it being created.

First, there is no “TIRF” or trans-inclusionary radical feminist. There is, in fact, no term that is opposite of “TERF” that is used, ever. There is only “TERF”; and that term is used to silence, to bash, to put down, to shame, etc. not just radical feminists, but all women who see biology as a real thing and gender as a social construct. It is used against women, especially women who disagree with men who claim to be women, in any way.

Second, the term is not just hurled at radical feminists. I as just called a “TERF” this evening and I have never purported to be a radical feminist, not in any of my tweets or writings’ but there I was, having label thrust upon me against my will, a label that by its very “definition” shouldn’t include me. But as I said, this slur isn’t just for radical feminists, it is for all women who disagree with men, especially men claiming to be women, i.e., trans “women” or male transgenders.

Let’s think about that for a minute. Let’s think about how (metaphorically) rape-y that is to have a label such as “TERF” or “trans-exclusionist” or “trans-exterminist” thrust upon a woman against her will. Slurs that she has never claimed, never called herself, never acknowledged, but slurs that are forced upon her, whether she likes it or not. That is a part of rape culture, is it not? To force something onto a woman that she does not want? Something that she has not given you permission to do. Especially when this comes from a group of people who want to self-label and do not want others to label them. How hypocritical of them to then force women to accept a term that they all know well and good is a slur meant to silence women.

Third, the only time women can even seem “trans-exclusionary” is when we want to have women-only spaces, like restrooms, dressing rooms, social gatherings, rape crisis centers, shelters, etc. But that is no more “trans-exclusionary” than it is for POC to be “white-person-exclusionary” when they desire POC-only spaces. Just like POC should be able to gather without white people so they don’t have to watch what they say around white people or cater to white people or have white people take over everything, we women should be allowed to have our own spaces without men, without having to worry about what we are saying around men or that they men will take over. Just like POC whould be able to gather and discuss what it is like to be a POC in this white-dominated world, we women should be allowed to gather as sisters and discuss what it is like to be females in a male-dominated world. We should not be slurred with “trans-exclusionary” simply because we wish to gather with other women in female-only spaces.

We should also be allowed to feel safe. We should be allowed to have penis-free restrooms, dressing rooms, shelters, jails, rape crisis centers, etc. so that we can feel safe. For thousands of years, the penis has been used as a weapon, as a weapon to control women, to hurt women, to exert power over women. It has been used as a weapon and we are seeing more and more how trans “women” are accused of or convicted of the rape and murder of women but they continue to be allowed to be placed in female prisons even if they still have their penises. This is so wrong on so many levels but in today’s PC culture of not wanting to offend these men, they are not placed where they are supposed to be: with other men. Instead, the rights and the safety of women are circumvented for the rights and safety of men who claim to be women because they are afraid of, you got it: men.

Before someone jumps into the fray and says that trans “women” have the right to feel safe as well, to that, I say two things: (1) of course, (2) but women are not a threat to trans “women,” men are. Men are dangerous and men do almost all of the damage to women, transgenders, and every other group out there. Women should not have to forgo their own safety to guarantee the safety of men from other men. If trans “women” wish to truly feel safe while respecting women’s need for safety and privacy, why don’t they create their own space, their own restrooms, their own rape crisis centers and shelters, their own changing rooms, etc.? The answer is clear: because (a) they don’t respect women and (b) they don’t want to be safe from men, they want what women have, they want to take over everything that woman is and that women have.

Finally, most women care about other women. There are some women who are so conditioned by the patriarchy that they believe the misogynistic bullshit that men and rape-culture spews down all of our throats. But most women want other women to be safe, they want us all to have our own private spaces, away from men and their penises. As I said, the penis has been used as a weapon against women for thousands of years and most women would agree that not allowing men and their penises, even if under dresses, into our private spaces where we are half naked and vulnerable or where we are running away from abusive men or where we are going for help and treatment after having been raped is something that all women should have without being called “TERFs” or “trans-exclusionary” in any way.

I know this because, as a butch woman, I have received the “look” from women in restrooms or changing rooms when they think I am a man. There have been women who say things to me in an effort to get me to leave the restroom or changing room; and in one instance, there was even a woman who physically tried to keep me out of a restroom, thinking I was a man and shouldn’t be in the women’s restroom. So I know that most women care about other women and other women’s safety; but men are trying so hard to shame these women into hating the rest of us for wanting our own space and using the slur “TERF” is one of the ways that they do this.

They threaten all woman with “TERF” if they don’t allow all men into all women’s private spaces and that is how “TERF” is used as a slur. It is used to control women by using shame to get them to see men in dresses as women and treat them as women when they are not. It is time for women to stop fighting against other women and fight with us. Stop allowing men who claim to be women walk all over you and demand that you see them in a certain way when common sense and science tells you to see them as they are; and stop allowing men to create and use slurs like “TERF” to silence your sisters who do see them as they are: men trying to re-define woman and abolish what the word really means so they can take over all of our spaces, once and for all.